Both Ends Against the Middle
by Amaryillis
Summary: Dany knows her best friends are hiding something. Ever since the night before Sophomore year they've been extra secretive, and more and more she finds herself pushed to the side. But before she can figure out their secret she finds herself visited in the middle of the night by a psychotic werewolf with a threat and a task for her. OC


**Chapter One: First day**

The night before the start of her sophomore year wasn't different than any other night. Her mother was watching the late night talk shows, half way through her second glass of red wine, her hair up in curlers. Dany had packed up her new notebooks and pencils and highlighters and was laying back in bed, flipping through a magazine while music played in the background.

Her phone buzz lightly on her bedside table and She flipped the corner of her magazine down, her glasses slipping down her nose as she glance over at the screen.

Stiles

_'Wanna find a dead body?'_

Dany raised her eyebrow, then looked down at her watch, her eyes widening as she saw the time. She tossed the magazine onto the counter and typed out a quick message back to Stiles.

_'Jesus christ, go to sleep.'_

She plugged in her phone and quickly changed into her pyjamas, which consisted of an oversized t-shirt with a faded hologram on it of some forgotten band form the 80s that her mother had been into in her youth. She stuck her head out her door and saw her mother sitting on the couch, asleep with glasses skewed on her face.

Dany sighed, taking her glasses away and turning off the television. She found her mothers phone that she never used and set her an alarm so she'd get up for work in the morning and grabbed a blanket to cover her.

"Night mom." Dany mumbled as she kissed her forehead.

Her eyes grew heavy as she walked to her own bedroom, setting her own alarm and curling up into bed.

She heard her phone buzz again and briefly saw that it was from Stiles. She grumbled and let it be, falling into a deep slumber.

It probably wasn't that important.

* * *

The next day she grudgingly woke up, tossing on an oversized collage sweatshirt and throwing her hair up into a pony before running to catch the bus. She was already seated and on her way to the school when she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, checking her messages from the night before.

Stiles

_'You're no fun'_

_'Scott's coming'_

_'Ugh, got caught by dad'_

She smirked and closed them, looking to see that Scott had sent her a few as well.

_'Stiles wants me to try and convince you to come'_

_'Hey can you come pick me up? Stiles got caught by the sheriff and I need a ride.'_

Dany winced, feeling bad that she hadn't gotten the message. She sent him a quick reply apologizing and asking if he was alright. He quickly responded that he was and that he'd explain at school.

Once she got there, Dany immediately started to search for Scott, eventually spotting him by the bike racks next to Jackson's annoyingly Silver Porsche.

She ran up over to him, purposefully ignoring Jackson as she hugged Scott, "Dude! What happened last night?"

"Oh good, it's Granny Long Legs." Jackson sneered at her, and Dany just rolled her eyes at his nickname, it hadn't bothered her in years.

"Jackson." She spoke in a mock polite tone, "Still using Lydia as your beard?"

In response he just clenched his jaw, closing his Porsche door and turning his glare on Scott, "Watch the paint job." He snapped, before rushing off to join his friends.

"Ass." Dany glared at him as he walked, before turning back to Scott, "Dude."

Scott chuckled, shaking his head, "I wish you wouldn't do that, you know he'll take it out on Stiles and me at try outs."

"Because he knows he doesn't get to me." Dany pointed out as they walked towards the school, keeping an eye out for the powder blue jeep their friend drove, "You know he'd stop picking on you if you didn't give him the satisfaction of a reaction."

"I can't help it." Scott grumbled, adjusting his backpack, "He just get's on my nerves."

"Scotty!" A voice called out, "Dany!"

They both turned and grinned as they saw Stiles running towards them, his limbs flailing out unnecessarily, making his shirt rid up a bit. Dany flushed red at the sight of his happy trail which had definitely not been there last year, and cleared her throat as she looked away.

"Scotty." Stiles stopped at them, looking a bit out of breathe, "You gotta show me."

Dany frowned, "Show him what?"

Scott winced, "I kinda got...bit by something in the woods."

"Bi-What!?" Dany gapped at him, her eyes wide. She reached forward and punched him in the arm, "Scott! You should have called! I would have woken up and driven you to the hospital!"

Scott smiled, rubbing his arm, "Nah, it was fine. My mom patched me up. Took away my X-Box for like...a month, though."

"Come on." Stiles urged impatiently, "I wanna see this thing."

Scott stopped and reached for the edge of his hoodie, gently lifting it. Dany gasped when she saw the wide of the gauze pad which covered the wound on his side. It was probably the side of his spread hand, with bits of blood still seeping through. Stiles reached forward to touch it and Scott recoiled.

"Yeah. Whoa!" Scott agreed, lowering his shirt, "It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf."

Stiles looked skeptical, "A wolf bit you?"

"That's a pretty big bite for a wolf." Dany winced, "Looks more like a bear."

"I heard a wolf howling." Scott explained.

Stiles scoffed, "No, you didn't."

"What do you mean, no I didn't." Scott looked to his friend, bewildered, " How do you know what I heard."

"Because California doesn't have wolves, okay? Not in like 60 years."

Scott slowed down at that, looking confused.

Dany shrugged, "It was probably a bear. Or maybe a cougar. You could've heard a dog howling."

"Maybe..." Scott mumbled, but didn't look convinced. "But if you don't believe me about the wolf, then you're definitely not gonna believe me about when I tell you I found the body."

Stiles stopped in his tracks, his eyes lighting up, "You- are you kidding me?"

"Body?" Dany looked at him with wide eyes, "What body."

"_The_ Body." Stiles exclaimed, "The one we were looking for?! Don't you listen to the radio, it's all over the news."

"People don't listen to the radio anymore Stiles." Dany pointed out, "And not all of us have a car."

"Well some jogger's found half a body in the woods yesterday." Stiles was vibrating with excitement, "Me and Scott went to look for the other half."

"And found it." Scott pointed out, wrinkling his nose, "I'm gonna have nightmares for a month."

Stiles beamed, "Oh god, that is freakin' awesome. I mean this is seriously gonna be the best thing that's happened to this town since..." He trailed off slightly, his gaze going over Scott and Dany's shoulder's, his face lightening as he spotted someone behind them, "Since the birth of Lydia Martin. Hey Lydia!"

Dany gritted her teeth, trying not to look visibly upset as she turned around. Lydia was immaculate, as usual. Her strawberry blonde hair was perfectly curled under a knit hat, her makeup was smooth and without imperfection, and she wore a fashionable peacoat over an outfit that probably cost more than her mom's car.

Stiles' eyes sparkled as she approached, "You look-" Lydia pushed past them without a word, "Like you're gonna ignore me..." Stiles looked put out as she walked into the school, not going him so much as a backward glance.

Stiles turned back to glare at them, "You're the cause of this, you know."

Dany glared, "Excuse me?"

"Uh huh?" Scott looked amused.

"Draggin' me down to your ned depths." He pointed an accusatory finger at both of them as they walked into school "I'm a nerd by association. I've been Scarlet Nerded by you."

Scott gave Dany a look which read 'Can you believe him'. Dany gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, before she cleared her throat and cracked her neck. She wasn't going to let Stiles crush on Lydia ruin her first day back at school.

* * *

She separated from her friends pretty quickly in the day. Scott and Stiles had english first thing, and she had history. As she walked into the class she spotted Jackson and Danny at the back of the classroom and huffed, moving to place her stuff on a nearby desk.

"Hey Granny." Jackson called out, and Dany rolled her eyes. He'd started calling her that last year because she had a tendency to wear her mother's hand me downs, the greatest fashions of the 80s. Had that to her large vintage glasses had earned her the nickname.

She turned around, huffing, "Yes, Jackass?"

"Where's stooge two and three?" He smirked, "They finally realized that you're too much of a dork, even for them?"

"They're in English." She responded, "You know...that class you failed."

Jackson glared at her, "Shut up Schultz."

"Hey Danny." She turned to his friend, "Isn't English the language we speak?"

"Oh, please." Jackson scoffed, "We all know you're seventeen. What grade did you fail? Kindergarten?"

"Witty." Dany spoke dryly. She knew she was a year older than Scott and Stiles. It wasn't really for any special reason. She'd just joined Kindergarten a year later, mostly due to her mothers depression and separation anxiety after her father's death. "You got me there Jackson."

He looked annoyed at her lack of reaction.

She chuckled, "The way you pull my pigtails one would think you had a crush Jackie."

Jackson visibly recoiled, and made a noise of disgust.

Dany chuckled, turning back to her notebook, sending a wink over to Danny, or 2.0 as Dany liked to call him. He shook his head, looking down at his notebook. Dany knew he refused to get mixed up into Jackson's shit. And she knew she was being a bit of a bitch, but god knows that Scott and Stiles wouldn't stand up to the asshole.

She knew that she was playing with fire. Last year Lydia had retaliated by spreading rumour's that she was a lesbian. Her wardrobe didn't do anything to dispel the idea and eventually it was so widespread that Dany herself believed it might be true. Lydia was good at that.

"It's alright Danny." Jackson chuckled, "We all know that Schultz is just as obsessed with my girlfriend as her pathetic little friend."

Schultz felt a burst of rage at that, "Screw you Jackson."

"You wish." He smirked.

At that moment the teacher walked into the room, yelling at them to quiet down and Dany winced, turning to the front of the class.

Point: Jackson.

She met up with Stiles and Scott in Chemistry, which was a pain. They had Harris, who had decided early on that he hated the three of them and had a mission in life to make their school lives miserable. Dany had taken to calling him Professor Snape in private, much to the amusement of Scott and Stiles.

"Does that make me Harry?" Stiles asked.

Dany scoffed, "_Please_, I'm Harry. You can be Hermione."

Scott had laughed for half an hour at the sputtering indignation on Stiles' face.

At lunch she got to hear all about the new girl from Scott and Stiles. According to Stiles she seemed nice. According to Scott she was an angel reincarnate. Her hair was dark and long and fell in curls like a waterfall. Her skin was pale and had dimples that could burn the sun.

"Is he okay?" Dany asked Stiles, as Scott grinned at a piece of mystery meat from the cafeteria, looking like nothing could ruin his good mood.

Stiles shrugged, "I think his mom might've given him something for the pain."

After school, Scott and Stiles went to Lacrosse try outs, and Dany made her way to track and Field.

Their team weren't champions or anything. In fact they rarely competed, which is probably what drew her attention in the first place. She enjoyed the athletic side without the stress of competition.

There weren't try outs so much as a sign up sheet. There was only about six or seven of them there first day, most of them she recognized from the year before. There were 2 freshmen, and three had graduated the year before, but the group size was roughly the same.

They went through the different events, mainly to find strengths and weaknesses of the new recruits. Dany herself was good at Javelin and Shot-put, as well as High jump and Discus. She wasn't as good at foot racing and the Coach wouldn't even let them touch pole vaulting.

Dany was breathing fairly heavily by the time they were done, and she cursed herself for getting so out of shape during the summer. She made her way to the girl's locker room, quickly getting changed. She pulled out her phone and saw she had a message from Scott.

_'Going with Stiles to find my inhaler. Dropped it in the woods last night.'_

Dany frowned, hoping his lack of inhaler hadn't affected his performance during try outs. She knew his asthma was one of the reasons he'd missed first line last year, and without his inhaler no doubt it would have been far worse.

She went home, knowing that Scott had work and Stiles was grounded. She wouldn't see either of them until tomorrow.

She got a message thirsty minutes later from Stiles.

_'You remember Derek Hale?"_

She frowned, and quickly wrote a response.

_'We went to school with his sister.'_

She didn't remember much of Cora Hale. She'd been a quiet kid, who much preferred to play by herself. She tended to glare at anyone who tried to talk to her and once Dany had sworn that she had even growled. But the class had still been shocked by her death, just like the rest of the town.

'_Oh right.'_ Stiles wrote, '_Derek's back in town'_

Dany sent him a quick 'Interesting' back. She hadn't even known they'd left town. She'd been a kid when the fire happened, and hadn't cared much for the sad story. By the time she was old enough to care, it was old news. As terrible as it was, the town had moved on.

Her mother was already home when she got back. Her blonde hair a bit frayed and there was finger paint on her face.

Dany chuckled, "Good day at work."

"Timothy's still eating glue." Her mother groaned, "I had to google how much glue is too much glue. Now that's on my search history forever."

Dany laughed outright, opening the fridge to find something to eat, "I think any glue is too much."

"That's what google said."

Dany snorted and took a swing from the orange juice carton.

"Danielle!" Her mother stood up and snatched the jug from her, grabbing a glass out of the cupboard, "I didn't raise an animal."

"You did the same thing this morning." Dany pointed out.

Her mother poured her a glass, "And when you're an adult who pay's a mortgage and taxes you can drink out of the carton to your hearts content. Until then..." She handed her the glass and Dany snorted, taking a drink.

"Did you hear about the body?" Dany asked, remembering the conversation with Stiles earlier.

Her mother sighed, "I did, but we don't talk about things like that at work. To many tiny ears."

Dany nodded. Her mother worked at a local preschool, not exactly a place to talk about a gruesome murder.

"Apparently the body was in half." Dany said, trying to hide her interest. It felt rude, but it was the most exciting thing to ever happen in the sleepy town since...well since the Hale fire.

Her mother narrowed her blue eyes, pointing a finger, "And where did you hear that?"

"Uh..." Dany flushed, "Stiles."

"That boy." Her mother chuckled, "How's you're crush on him going."

"_Mom_!" Dany groaned, "I am fully regretting telling you that."

"You didn't tell me anything." Her mother scoffed, grabbing a bottle wine off the counter, making Dany purse her lips, "I guessed and you had a rather embarrassing fit about it."

Dany grumbled, "Still. You don't have to talk about it. It's embarrassing."

"How is it embarrassing?" Her mother giggled, "He's a fine young boy. Very funny, very kind. And you two get along so well."

"It's embarrassing because he like's Lydia." Dany reminded her in a patient tone, "Since like...the third grade."

"In the third grade you had a crush on Bert and Ernie." Her mother pointed out.

"Oh god." Dany leaned down to press her forehead to the kitchen counter, "You don't _tell_ people that, do you?!"

"No." Her mother scoffed, but Dany could spot the guilty look in her eye.

"Alright." Dany stood up, grabbing her orange juice, "I'm done. I'm taking my pity party up to my room."

"Fine. Be that way." Her mother grabbed her wine glass, "I'm gonna call your grandmother, who'd like to hear from you once in a while by the way."

"Yeah, yeah." Dany grumbled, heading towards the stairs.

"And do your homework!" Her mother yelled after her.

* * *

She didn't have any homework, so instead Dany loaded up a game on her computer that she and Stiles played together and quickly looked to see if he was online. She smirked as she saw his user name and quickly clicked on it.

"I thought you were grounded." She spoke into her headset.

She heard Stiles sigh on the other side, "_Dad's at work. He still hasn't figured out how to turn off the internet. I dread the day someone decides to tell him."_

"Is he still looking for the body?" She asked, half distracted by the game.

Stiles cursed as his character died, "_Uh, yeah. Me and Scotty couldn't find it when we found his inhaler. So we couldn't really tell my dad where we saw it."_

"How we're try outs?" She asked, "How was Scott without his inhaler."

"_Fine actually._" Stiles sounded confused, "_He was amazing, actually. I didn't know he had it in him."_

"Well he's been practising all summer."

"_He think's he's sick._" Stiles snorted.

"Was that girl there?" Dany asked, "What's her name again?"

_"Allison?"_ Stiles responded, _"I think so, why?"_

"Well there you go." Dany smirked, "He's trying to show off for the pretty girl. Adrenaline can do miracles."

"_That was some kind of adrenaline then._" Stiles snorted, "_He blocked every shot, even Jackson's."_

Dany perked up, "How pissed was he?"

"_So pissed."_ Stiles snorted, "_Even Lydia looked impressed. Do you think if Scotty get's first line I'll enter her line of sight? I feel like if I could get her to notice I...well, exist, then I might have a chance."_

Dany winced. She knew that Stiles was most likely already on Lydia's line of sight. Lydia wasn't as much of a bitch as she liked to pretend she was. No doubt she was ignoring Stiles because she didn't want to have to break his heart by rejecting him - but dragging him along in the process.

"Maybe." Dany faked some enthusiasm, "Who knows."

"_Oh shit._" There were ruffled sounds from Stiles microphone that made her wince, _"Dad's home, gotta go!"_

He ended the call before she could respond and she huffed, closing the conversation window. She played the game herself for ten minutes before growing bored and closing it down.

She heard her mom singing along to David Bowie in the living room and groaned, grabbing her headphones. Her mother was probably already close to drunk, and she could be a loud drunk when the mood came to her.

As she collapsed on her bed, pulling out her phone to mindlessly play angry birds for the next couple of hours, she begrudgingly gave the day a B-. Not the worst day in the world, but not the best.

Of course, what she didn't know, was that it was going to be the best day she would have for a long time.

* * *

**A/N: OC-Stravaganza! Where I post all the OC fics I found on my computer. Here's another Teen Wolf one. I had a bunch of them, deleted most of them but there's 2 or 3 I saved. I actually forgot about this one, so I'll have to reacquaint myself with it before updating.**

**Everyone is welcome to check me out on tumblr amarysue**

**Until Next Time**

**Amary**


End file.
